My first airbrush

Virtually any decent quality airbrush is fine.  I have friends with all the major brands, each swear that the one they use is the only decent airbrush, but their models all come out great!  A lot of selection is personal choice.  Both single action and double action are fine for cars, ships.  If you are doing intricate camouflage the DA is probably better.  Compressor choice is important too, especially on how much noise you can tolerate.

It all depends on how much you want to spend and invest in one. There's really no right or qwrong airbrush to choose from - except cheap garbage ones.

Go here:

sites.google.com/.../home

Strongly second BlackSheep's suggestion. Don Wheeler's site is the best place to start I know of.

All of the previous replies are correct, it becomes essentially "what YOU prefer." I've tried the majority of brands, single action, double action and external mix. For some time I've centered mostly on Badger, I appreciate their performance, durability and ease of cleaning. Of all my Badger's, the 200G and 100G serve the majority of my needs, probably 95% of my painting is with them.

For an inexpensive but very high quality single action airbrush with great reliability, capable of fine spray work, personally I think the Badger 200 is among the very best of it's type. Plenty are available on ebay, I recommend a new, unused one, so that you know it's in good condition. Look at Chicago Airbrush, TCP or Webaire, all good discount authorized dealers.

I also strongly recommend Don's Airbrush website, you'll learn just about all you need to know about airbrushes and brands. Best of luck with your search.

Patrick

My Badger 200 is now over forty years old. It is becoming a bit banged up and I am finally considering getting another.  However, even the needle is original- only thing I have replaced are the Teflon head washers.  Newer ones do seem to have more plastic parts, but I guess I have to live with that.

I have been looking at the Iawa Neo TRN 1,  any thoughts

I use a paasche H single action airbrush, and I haven't been disappointed yet. Maybe someday down the road I will find a need for a more complex airbrush, but this thing is just so reliable and easy to clean/use. Cleanup for me is just loosening one set screw, and then pulling out the needle/tip/air cap and tossing them into my $20 ultra sonic cleaner.

How patient and thorough are you about cleaning things up, and what sort of paint do you want to spray? If you don't have a lot of patience, then make sure you know what you are getting yourself into before grabbing any internal mixing and/or gravity fed.

smokeymodeler621

I have been looking at the Iawa Neo TRN 1,  any thoughts

I have the Neo CN and it works great. Friend just bought the TRN 1 and really likes it. He really likes the pistol trigger. A nice video review here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEZx-zsTFdA

If you like the pistol grip/trigger probably a good way to go without breaking the bank.